The Book of Treasure Maps, Cassandra's Sphere of Time Alteration

This is going to be another one of those items that in today's world may not be as useful as it once with. With the advent of the Internet and the ease that small publishers have can make their products available items like The Book of Treasure Maps are now easy to get and in many cases products are free.

When this was published back in 1979 though the DM did not have access to the wealth of products that are available today. This is the same situation that I have written about before with the other Judges Guild products. This product provides the DM with mini-adventures that they can throw into their ongoing campaign on the fly.

The adventures are set in the Judges Guild Wilderness setting but they cna easily be adapted to any setting. There are a total of five adventures included in the book which comes in at 48 pages. Each of the adventures comes with a separate map for both the players and the DM. Each also includes backgrounds and rumors for each of the adventures. The included adventures are listed below:

The Lost Temple
The Tomb of Aethering the Damned
The Lone Tower
Willchidar's Lair
The Crypts of Arcadia

The module has another thing in its favor. This is the fact that in addition to being written by Paul Jaquays he did all of the interior art. This may not be the draw for some that it is for me but in my mind his art helped make early Judges Guild products what they are. The mummy image on page 15 and the demon on page 36 are images that still stick with me to this day as some of the most evocative art from early products. It is also said that Mr. Jaquays is the taller person in the metal helmet from the cover. This may also be the first known published LARP picture.


Spell:

Cassandra's Sphere of Time Alteration

Level: Ninth
Range: Special
Duration: Special
Ares of Effect: Special
Components: V,S
Casting Time: 1 Segment
Saving Throw: None

When this spell is cast the magic user causes time flow in the affected area to slow. The rate at which the time will slow and the area of effect are based on the caster level and the amount of energy channeled for the effect.

The spell will have a based effect of causing time in the area of effect to slow to an extent that one day in the area will allow two years to pass outside the area. The caster can amplify this but at great cost.

The spell will cause the caster to age 10 years for the base casting. The cast can further slow time but doing so will cost the caster one full level of experience per level of effect. For each level the time alteration will be doubled. The caster will also age an additional 10 years for each factor of alteration. The caster must make a saving throw versus death magic or lose 2-5 points of intelligence due to strain of the magics involved.

The levels lost in this fashion are not easily restored. Not even a Wish will restore the levels. The caster will be required to begin accumulating experience as if they were first level again. Once they reach the experience points to start gaining levels again they will.

The area affected will not be noticeable. The spell effect will actually mask the appearance of the area. To those on the outside it will appear to be a normal area regardless of what the actual inside may look like. The same will hold true for the appearance from the inside. Nothing will serve notice that there is anything different passing in or out of the area except for a chill and the immediate change in scenery.

The area that can be affected is a 25" radius sphere per level of the caster. The size can be any size up to that effect or as small as a 1" sphere. The radius extends into all directions so this will need to be taken into account when cast. The caster can cast the spell up to a distance of the area of effect plus 1".

Disclaimer: The spells that you will see, for how ever long the write ups last, were all written up or conceived of back in the 80's so the terminology may not appropriate for anything other than 1e and depending on how well I did back then it may be slightly off for that as well. If there is any duplication of spells that exist now it is most likely I wrote mine first :) Please feel free to comment on them but try not to be too hard on me. If anyone wishes to use these in anything they print please let me know in advance and all I ask is proper credit.